Tim Wise gives "certain" Progressives a piece of his mind.......

Of Broken Clocks, Presidential Candidates, and the Confusion of Certain White LiberalsPosted on January 12, 2012

...the so-called progressives who sing the praises of Ron Paul, all because of his views on domestic spying, bailouts for banksters, and military intervention abroad, the fact that 90 percent of his political platform is right-wing boilerplate about slashing taxes on the rich, slashing programs for the poor and working class, breaking unions, drilling for oil anywhere and everywhere, and privatizing everything from retirement programs to health care doesn’t matter: the fact that he’ll ostensibly legalize drugs is enough. And this is so, even though he has merely said he would leave drug laws up to the states (which means 49 separate drug wars, everywhere except maybe Vermont, so ya know, congrats hippies!), and he would oppose spending public money on drug rehab or education, both of which you’d need more of if drugs were legalized, but why let little details like that bother you?
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I want those of you who are seriously singing Paul’s praises, while calling yourself progressive or left to ask what it signifies — not about Ron Paul, but about you — that you can look the rest of us in the eye, your political colleagues and allies, and say, in effect, “Well, he might be a little racist, but…

How do you think that sounds to black people, without whom no remotely progressive candidate stands a chance of winning shit in this country at a national level? How does it sound to them — a group that has been more loyal to progressive and left politics than any group in this country — when you praise a man who opposes probably the single most important piece of legislation ever passed in this country, and whose position on the right of businesses to discriminate, places him on the side of the segregated lunchcounter owners? And how do you think they take it that you praise this man, or possibly even support him for president, all so as to teach the black guy currently in the office a lesson for failing to live up to your expectations?

How do you think it sounds to them, right now, this week, as we prepare to mark the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, that you claim to be progressive, and yet you are praising or even encouraging support for a man who voted against that holiday, who opposes almost every aspect of King’s public policy agenda, and the crowning achievements of the movement he helped lead?

My guess is that you don’t think about this at all. Because you don’t have to. One guess as to why not.

1. this is such an excellent article

I read it today... and I follow Tim Wise on twitter... he's amazing.

This is the paragraph which totally sums this up:

"When you support or give credence to a candidate, you indirectly empower that candidate’s worldview and others who hold fast to it. So when you support or even substantively praise Ron Paul, you are empowering libertarianism, and its offshoots like Ayn Rand’s “greed is good” objectivism, and all those who believe in it. You are empowering the fans of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, in which books they learn that altruism is immoral, and that only the self matters. You are empowering the reactionary, white supremacist, Social Darwinists of this culture, who believe — as does Ron Paul — that that Greensboro Woolworth’s was right, and that the police who dragged sit-in protesters off soda fountain stools for trespassing on a white man’s property were justified in doing so, and that the freedom of department store owners to refuse to let black people try on clothes in their dressing rooms was more sacrosanct than the right of black people to be treated like human beings."

2. He always gives that "certain" very SPECIAL group of folks a smack right in the forehead

That knocks them flat on their ass. And I love him for it.

These are the same people who told black people we were being "too sensitive" when the Tea Party first came out and lots of "liberals" were running to join their bandwagon despite their obvious racism towards the president and blacks in general. Blacks were told to "focus on the similarities rather than the differences" with the Tea Party. As usual, we were the ones right on the money and other folks were late to the party.

5. Perspective:

The need was real. And the man who best perceived that need -- Louis Farrakhan -- preached bigotry, and headed a church with a history of violence, and patriarchal and homophobic views. We knew this. Some of us even endorsed it. A few of us debated about it. But, ultimately we didn't care. Farrakhan--and his cadre of clean disciplined black men and modest, chaste black women--spoke to our deep, and inward, sense that we were committing a kind of slow suicide, that--as the rappers put it--we were self-destructing.

6. Perspective for whom? Farrakhan never ran for president or any elected office

He deliberately fashioned himself so that his base of support was narrow because this was the only group he purported to care about. As Coates admits, even many blacks never liked Farrakhan and he certainly never positioned himself as even remotely interested in what whites thought about anything or sought their support.

Paul on the other hand, is positioning himself as qualified to lead one of the most racially and culturally diverse countries on the planet even though his opinions of many different subsets of Americans is bigoted and intolerant.

Failing that, it must be asserted that a man who once claimed that black people were knowingly injecting white people with HIV, who fund-raised by predicting a race-war, who handsomely profited from it all, should lead the free world. If that line falls too, we are forced to confess that Ron Paul regularly summoned up the specters of racism for his own politically gain, and thus stands convicted of moral cowardice.

Moral cowardice and much, much more. An interesting article, but I have no idea why you posted this here.

8. "As Coates admits, even many blacks never liked Farrakhan"

Yes. That's the point.

Farrakhan never ran for president or any elected office

As I told another blog commenter who responded in the same way, that's a cop-out.

I posted it here because it's head, shoulders, and then some above what Wise wrote, partially because provides perspective by pointing out that he too responded to part of the message of someone he didn't like. That's a perspective Wise would never provide.

9. It is your opinion that this is "head shoulders and then some above what Wise wrote"

As I said, I don't even understand the purpose of you posting this here and as you seem unable or unwilling to provide that information.

As I told another blog commenter who responded in the same way, that's a cop-out.

A cop out for what? Do you honestly see no difference between a militant black leader that actually advocates separatism from whites and is targeting his message to a very narrow group and a racist white man who is running for president of one of the most racially and culturally diverse countries in the world?

10. Provide what information?

If you mean information as to why Coates' take is better, it should be obvious. He doesn't dismiss the people who are pointing out these ironies as "racists" who are "exercising white privilege" because he sees the similarities between their point of view and the point of view he had in 1995.

No, I don't see any real, effective difference. Farrakhan wasn't running for President, and Paul has no chance of becoming President. Are you giving Farrakhan as pass because he targets his message to blacks? If that's the case, it pretty much takes all the effectiveness out of the first part of Wise's post, doesn't it? You may as well give David Duke as pass as well. Hell, that was the only part of his post that was effective, and you've just neutralized it.

12. It is clear that you have missed Wise's point and you seem to have missed Coates' as well

Coates' piece seems like a well-written exercise in saying that people will often ignore bits of a "leader" that they don't like in order to focus on the bits that they do. He refers to Farrakhan and Paul as his examples.

Tim Wise is specifically referring to the white liberal practice of ignoring ALL of the bits of a person they dislike (the racist, sexist, and homophobic things that Paul has written) in order to tout Paul as some champion and they want BLACKS, WOMEN and GAYS to do the same.

Farrakhan and his disciples could have given a hot damn whether anyone white agreed with or approved of his message. One of the primary goals of Farrakhan's and the NOI was to encourage black survival and participation AWAY from whites. So the more whites disliked Farrakhan, I would wager everything in my pocket the happier Farrakhan was.

White liberals who support Ron Paul and want members of the groups that Paul has maligned to as well are encouraging these members to LOOK BEYOND the things he's said in order to build a broader base of support. These are two FUNDAMENTALLY different issues. One was a group that made no effort to broaden their base and stood happily by what they said and wrote. The other is a group in support of a man that needs the very groups that he's maligned in order to achieve what he wishes to achieve and is backtracking like crazy to deny and minimize the things he's written and said in order to appeal to these groups and broaden his support.

Edit: It can be reasonably argued that both men used bigotry (anti-Semitism/sexism in Farrakhan's case; EVERYTHING in Paul's) to build a base of support and become well-known. That is where the similarities end.

I have absolutely no idea why you are trying to hold up Coates' piece as some sort of rebuttal to Wise's. If anything, Coates' piece bolsters Wise's article on exactly why Ron Paul should not be touted by white liberals and explains in explicit detail why doing so is offensive.

13. Really?

Tim Wise is specifically referring to the white liberal practice of ignoring ALL of the bits of a person they dislike (the racist, sexist, and homophobic things that Paul has written) in order to tout Paul as some champion and they want BLACKS, WOMEN and GAYS to do the same.

Which "white liberals"? All of them, or just the ones who criticize Obama? Aren't the white liberals on this comment thread who agree with you white liberals too? This is far from the first time I've observed this sort of thing, and I have to say, the constant shifting of political identifiers is strange. There must be a reason for it. What is it? Are you using the broad brush "white liberals" because you believe black people think of whites in a broad brush fashion?

I haven't noticed "white liberals", as opposed to libertarian Paulites, ignoring the racist, etc. bits, or expecting blacks, women and gays to do the same.

Farrakhan and his disciples could have given a hot damn whether anyone white agreed with or approved of his message.

Well, I wasn't talking about real disciples of Farrakhan. Coates wasn't a disciple of Farrakhan, and most of the people, particularly "white liberal" people, pointing out the ironies in Paul's and Obama's policy stances aren't Paul disciples.

I don't see Coates' article as a rebuttal to Wise's. I see it as providing a perspective that Wise doesn't. I see it as a superior expression, because Coates doesn't engage in smearing those "white liberals" as racists, and he certainly doesn't betray the patronizing, even white supremacist attitude toward black people that Wise does when he presumes that all black people will react the same way to seeing some white liberals pointing out that at least on the face of it, Paul's foreign policy seems more "progressive" than Obama's. He thinks we will all react the same way, and he thinks we'll all react in a hysterical, irrational manner, because it certainly would be hysterical and irrational to read/hear the words of these few people, and decide that all white liberals feel the same way.

14. Do you not realize where you are?

This is the AA forum. Most of the participants in this thread are black.

Your posts in this forum started out as difficult to understand their purpose, but they are becoming more incoherent now. If this is supposed to mean something

"the constant shifting of political identifiers is strange. There must be a reason for it. What is it? Are you using the broad brush "white liberals" because you believe black people think of whites in a broad brush fashion?"

then you'll have to explain it to someone else because I've lost interest.

It appears to me that you see Coates' piece as "superior" because it doesn't make you uncomfortable. You seem to take MUCH discomfort and pain from what Wise has written and are trying to use Coates' piece to deflect from what Wise has said without seeming to understand that both have come to the same page just from different angles. Might help for you to figure out exactly why Wise's piece bothers you so much.

No, they didn't come to the same page from different angles. Coates is specifically talking about this issue. For Wise, as it is for most other extreme Obama devotees, it's just another hook for slashing at people who criticize Obama. They're not really on the same page.

16. And now we get to the crux of the matter

as well as your obvious discomfort with Wise's piece.

For Wise, as it is for most other extreme Obama devotees, it's just another hook for slashing at people who criticize Obama.

No surprises here. None at all. And the fact that the black posters in this thread and on this web site mostly agree with Tim Wise's piece has apparently flown over your head along with I'm guessing a whole bunch of other stuff. But I guess since we're all just extreme Obama devotees, you were probably expecting that huh?

FINALLY I got the answer to my question -- why you posted Coates' piece as some sort of rebuttal to the OP.

17. Well, I don't know

about the whole website, but the fact that black posters in this forum and this thread mostly agree with Wise's piece doesn't surprise me at all. Of course, the black posters on this thread aren't the same thing as black people in general. Wise is wrong in his assumption that black people in general would react hysterically and irrationally to a few "white liberals" pointing out the differences in some of Paul's and Obama's policy stances, and his apparent belief that black people in general are emotionally needy for the attentions of white people.

How do you think that sounds to black people, without whom no remotely progressive candidate stands a chance of winning shit in this country at a national level? How does it sound to them -- a group that has been more loyal to progressive and left politics than any group in this country --yadda, yadda, yadda...

Evidently, he thinks most black people will hear it differently than...he does, for instance:

For those having trouble thinking/interpreting/reading plain English, as previously presented in my last diary...

...like, for instance, those who quip in oh-so-quippy fashion that some of us believe if you say anything positive about Ron Paul you are pro-Paul and if you say anything negative about Obama you're anti-Obama...

Well, hell. Evidently, he doesn't believe that group defined as "some of us" includes black people. When ones reads the first quote in light of the second one, it's hard not to come to the conclusion that what he's really saying in the first one is "I don't feel this way, but think about how those black people will feel. I mean, you know how they are".

That said, there are a relative few black people who are possessed by that sort of emotional neediness, and have had a hysterical, irrational reaction to some white liberals pointing out the aforementioned ironies. But those people don't represent the majority of black people, black progressives, or even black Obama supporters. Those people tend to have hysterical, irrational reactions to any white liberals criticizing Obama.

18. LOL You should be embarrassed but that would involve a measure of honesty and self-awareness

Of course, the black posters on this thread aren't the same thing as black people in general.

By that logic, Tim Wise's piece certainly doesn't represent or reflect on all white liberals. So what's gotten your drawers all twisted?

That said, there are a relative few black people who are possessed by that sort of emotional neediness, and have had a hysterical, irrational reaction to some white liberals pointing out the aforementioned ironies.

What I find ironic is a poster who obviously got his ass smacked by that Tim Wise piece deciding to come into the black forum and insult us using the same tactics he bemoans in the Wise article. YOUR reaction to having Tim Wise hold up that mirror and obviously not liking what you see is what is being displayed here. Talking about people's "irrational reactions" to white liberal criticism of the president while simultaneously crying over Tim Wise's excellent critique of some white liberals' need to prop up Ron Paul is the most hypocritical BS I've seen today.

25. i see it.

i try and try to take your example and reason calmly with people, expecting them to want to understand. one thing, usually by the time i am reading it, you have done what is possible, and it is clear the person will not take to it.

27. i agree. it is surreal and indecent. on that note, i have been wondering,

are we supposed to alert using that link down there? i have many times this week wanted to alert, including on that poster, but i do not want to bring general admin into this forum unless i know that is best to do. there is not a host at this time, is that so?

do you use that button to alert, Number23?

it is one of the reasons i have not known how to deal with those who have bogus intentions, and no intention of absorbing intelligence and reason, which you so generously, and calmly offer to them.

20. No, he doesn't represent all white liberals, and that's a good thing.

I do understand why you enjoyed "excellent critique". He really did articulate your fear of being "abandoned" by "white liberals". He spoke to that emotional neediness I talked about. Thank goodness only a relative few black are afflicted with that.

23. Keep posting. I encourage it. The hole you dig with each post gets deeper and deeper

Edit: And I can tell that you spend alot of time around black people and have a deep and THOROUGH understanding of what our needs and fears are. The "fear of abandonment by white liberals" is right up there with alien abduction and who Kim Kardashian will marry next.

There is a reason that the vast majority of black social achievement was started by blacks. After the groups were established in the black community, THEN those groups would seek to enlist the aid of whites. Black churches, organizations, colleges and universities have been incubators for much black social achievement, and I can guarantee there weren't very many whites (no matter how liberal they fancied themselves) at these gatherings.

Even the black feminist movement was separate from the overall feminist movement and there are countless other examples where blacks were pursuing rights separate from the overall (read: white) movement So your assertion that I and other blacks are afraid of "abandonment by white liberals" shows an utter and complete lack of knowledge and understanding of the history of this country and of its social movements within the area of black achievement and rights.

11. Interesting Article...

Thankfully, Ron Paul is not in danger of becoming President of the United States of America. Not even if some misguided democrats vote for him.

He's another in a long line of broken clocks...gets a couple of things right, and so many other things wrong. Eventually, he'll be tossed away as others before him.

Pat Buchanan said not to trust NAFTA. He got one thing right in 50 years. Paul Krugman said NAFTA would be wonderful and berated anyone who spoke against it...democrat, republican, independent, etc. I wouldn't trust any of the aforementioned men with my vote for dog catcher, although Paul Krugman has gotten a number of things right over the years.

If lightening struck and Paul managed to win the primary nomination...a thought so ludicrous it barely warrents mentioning. President Obama would quickly dispense of him in possibly the shortest presidential campaign known to man. So, perhaps I should be rooting for Ron Paul right now.

If Ron Paul comes up with an idea or suggestion that makes sense. I would say, adopt it and move on. Keep and use the good ideas and ignore the rest. But, don't vote for him. Democrats have a sitting president. I see no reason to wring my hands over the fact that some democrats like some of Ron Paul's ideas.

Having said that, I also can't say I'm wringing my hands because some white democrats aren't considering my "feelings" when they bring up good points about Ron Paul. I'm certainly sturdier than that. I'm also not so naive as to believe there isn't a bit of racism in the democratic party. A lot less than the republican party, but it's certainly here as well.

22. The Case Against Ron Paul

Ron Paul's simplistic policy prescriptions in particular abolishing the Fed and returning to our failed experiment with a 'Gold Standard' is just another indication of his lack of comprehension of the many great challenges and opportunities that face our great nation.

Paul loves to bash Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and the Federal Reserve. But Fannie, Freddie and the Fed did NOT cause the housing bubble or it's collapse. That was Republicans deregulating credit derivatives such as Mortgage Backed Securities and Collateralized Debt Obligations as well as banks throwing all of their credit adjudication standards out of the window. Similarly the Fed is not running up the debt. Budgetary responsibility (i.e., fiscal policy) belongs to Congress which must originate and pass all appropriations. The Fed is merely ensuring that the US does not default on debt that has already been incurred (i.e., monetary policy).

On the issue of the Gold Standard, there is not enough gold on the planet to come anywhere close to accommodating global economic activity. So then what if all nations returning to the Gold Standard drove up the price of gold to accommodate increased demand? In that event, then the value of gold has become less determined by its inherent store of value (e.g., use in manufacturing etc. which would soon be suspended due to the increased price) and more based on its arbitrary use as a currency. In effect, the new price would essentially render gold as a proxy for a very highly denominated paper currency. No you couldn't just print more of it, but you could revalue the gold you had by simply increasing demand. This demand would most often take the form of electronic gold-denominated loans. And the primary determination of the gold price would be based on your ability to repay. This is exactly the same situation we have today in US dollars.

Finally, Paul's obsession with overturning the Civil Rights Act of 1964, refighting the civil rights battles and placing private property rights above individual civil liberties is simply inexplicable. Ron Paul is a 1960's throwback and he will NEVER be elected POTUS. Furthermore, no Congress would ever enact his aristocratic Confederate agenda even if he was. His continued attempts to defend all of the wonky policy prescriptions and white supremacist nonsense in his now infamous newsletters with pseudo-intellectual psycho-babble demonstrates his utter lack of fitness for the job.